by Alison Kent
Thing was, she’d gone to college not knowing what she wanted to do with her life. She wasn’t even sure she knew now. It wasn’t as if she’d been born to coach like her father, or like her mother, had a need to counsel struggling teens. A calling was too ethereal, impractical. Faith prided herself on being neither, and banking fit.
Still, the word cozy kinda stung. “Nine-to-five’s not all it’s cracked up to be. In my case, the perks come strangled in suits and pantyhose.”
Kendall laughed. “Can I tell you a secret? I don’t remember ever owning a pair of pantyhose. Unless tights count.”
“I think I hate you now.”
“And when I’m elbow deep tonight processing returns, I’ll be hating you, your comfy bed, and your night with Timothy Olyphant.”
“I guess that makes us even,” Faith said, laughing, then looking up as Ned Orleans came to a stop between them. “Hey, Sheriff. Are you picking up dinner, too?”
Out of uniform for the evening, he patted a beefy hand against his big belly and laughed. “I’m here with the missus. We just topped off two plates of fried catfish with a big bowl of banana pudding. I didn’t want to interrupt, but I saw Kendall here and figured it a good time to ask her if she’d had anymore trouble from her thief.”
Faith glanced over, frowned. “You have a thief?”
“I know, right?” She shook her head. “Someone’s been snatching books off my shelves.”
“Well, that sucks.”
Kendall’s gaze traveled from Faith to the sheriff before she looked back to her menu. “I get that it’s tough on everyone with the library’s funding being pulled, and the school having nothing for the kids to check out except old Louis L’Amours, but this is my livelihood. I can’t afford to keep taking these hits.”
“I think those L’Amours were there when I was in school,” Faith said.
“I’m pretty sure they were there when I was, too,” Ned added.
“I wouldn’t doubt it. And I’m happy to give away any of the trade-ins too worn to put on the shelf. But the Nesbø title was a special order, and now I have to order it again.” She turned to the sheriff. “To answer your question, no, I haven’t noticed anything else missing, but you might ask Arwen. She mentioned her trash being disturbed by something other than dogs or coyotes.”
“How would she know it wasn’t animals?” Faith asked, looking up as the third woman joined them.
“Because dogs and coyotes don’t twist tops off soda bottles,” Arwen said, swiping a rag across the bar. “And last time I looked, they didn’t leave size twelve sneaker prints in ketchup.”
“Sounds to me like someone’s hungry.” Faith lifted her beer, realizing again how even their small town hadn’t escaped the economy’s hit.
“That’s why I haven’t said anything about it to Ned.” Arwen nodded at the sheriff. “Until now.”
Ned frowned, bobbed his head. “I’ll make sure the night patrol knows to keep an eye on your place.”
“As long as whoever it is keeps his foraging to the Dumpster, it’s not a big deal. Once he, or she, breaks into the kitchen, I will press charges. But right now, I’m more concerned about someone in Crow Hill being that much in need and stealing instead of asking for help.”
Faith thought back to her conversation with the Harts. “These days, there could be more than a few people on that list.”
“I know,” Arwen said. “I hate it. Especially since Dax and the boys aren’t that far from having their names added.”
“At least they’ve got family here,” Kendall offered.
“All but Casper,” Arwen said, her gaze meeting Faith’s and a look passing between them that had heat rising beneath Faith’s skin.
“I’ll leave you ladies to your supper then.” Ned gave a pat to the bar. “Call if you have more troubles. Any of you.”
Faith waited until the sheriff was out of earshot before giving Arwen her order. Kendall did the same, and once Arwen had torn the tickets from the pad, she asked Faith, “How’re the party plans coming?”
“We’re making progress, but if we can’t agree on where to hold it, none of our progress is going to make a lick of difference. Boone is so hard-headed.” Even though in this case he was probably right. “You know I really wanted to have it here.”
“Don’t even worry about it. I totally understand the thing with the parents.”
“Thanks. You were so generous to offer, and I’m so bummed we can’t work it out.”
“You know,” Arwen said, tapping her pencil to her chin. “It’s too bad Casper doesn’t have the money to fix up that house of his. Can you imagine having the party there? Empty rooms decked out with white linen cloths on the tables, tiny little Christmas bulbs strung around, candles in clear hurricane holders?” She tucked her pencil behind her ear and sighed. “God, I can just see it. The hardwood floor gleaming. The windows reflecting the lights and the flames. The moon shining down. It would be gorgeous.”
Arwen’s words conjured up a scene from an old Kevin Costner movie, one with a beautiful Pat Metheny ballad played at an outdoor wedding. The dancing, the lights, the trees and soft decorative greenery…Faith could so picture the same sort of atmosphere for the party. With one problem—the state of Casper’s house.
A problem she could solve if she were willing to take the risk.
Days into thinking about doing so, and she still hadn’t decided. But, yes. She could see it. And gorgeous wasn’t a big enough word. “Do you realize the money it would take to get that house in shape for anything?”
“I do. But it would be a showplace. Absolutely stunning.” Arwen shrugged. “Instead, it will remain the pit it’s fallen into, and the Texas Historical Commission will mourn the loss.”
“I doubt they’re even aware of the house’s existence,” Faith said, closing her menu. “Only Crow Hill old-timers know its history.”
“Which makes it doubly sad that Casper can’t make it right,” Kendall said, glancing over Faith’s shoulder. “And speaking of the devil…”
Refusing her pounding heart’s urging to turn, Faith swallowed, scraped a nail over the label on her longneck, pretended Casper’s scent and heat didn’t have her body tightening, longing, waiting…
He stopped just behind her, his shoulder brushing hers as if by accident, his voice deep and gravelly. “A man can’t even stop for a beer without finding he’s being talked about.”
“Just be glad your name wasn’t spoken in vain,” Arwen said with a wink before saying to both Faith and Kendall, “I’ll get these orders turned in. It’ll be just a few.”
“I ordered more than fries,” Faith called at her. “I hope you noticed.”
All Arwen did was lift the slip of paper over her head before disappearing between the swinging doors into the kitchen. And then Kendall slid from her seat, waving at someone in the dining room behind her. “I’m going to go say hi to Teri Gregor.”
Faith glanced beyond Kendall’s shoulder to where Teri sat laughing with eight-year-old Shannon, her Navy SEAL husband’s half-sister who was technically her sister-in-law but who Teri had taken on to help raise. “Say hello for me, too.”
“Sure thing. And we’ll catch up again soon.”
Once Kendall was out of earshot, Faith swiveled to give Casper a side-eyed glance, ignoring the gleam in his eyes when she said, “Thanks. Running off my friends that way.”
“Did I?” he asked, boosting a hip onto the edge of the stool where Kendall’d been sitting, one leg straight, one bent, his jeans tight around his thighs. “Huh. That usually doesn’t happen with me and women. What is it that I can’t make right?”
“Your house,” Faith said, refusing to think about what usually did happen with him and women. Refusing, too, to look at his thighs. “What’re you doing here?”
“It’s suppertime. I’m hungry,” he said, his eyes more gray than usual and reflecting the color from the bar’s neon signs.
“Thought you and Boone took turns cooking
.”
“We do. But I was on my way to the house to check on some things and saw you pull in. Thought you might want company.”
She was not going to fall so easily for his charms. Not this time. Not after the last. “I had company, thank you very much, and I’m getting dinner to go.”
“Want to bring it out to the ranch?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“I changed my sheets.”
She thought of riding him, the feel of his cock stretching her, the look in his eyes as he watched her come. She dropped her gaze to the bar top, searching for her voice. “I’m pretty sure this isn’t the time or the place for this discussion.”
“Right. The secret. Don’t want it getting out.”
It wasn’t about the secret getting out as much as needing room to breathe. Space to find her footing. Distance to deal with what they’d done outside the Rainsong Cafe. She still hadn’t been brave enough to analyze that encounter, to figure out how she’d let lust get the better of her in such an inappropriate way.
The fact that she hadn’t made it easier to say, “It’s probably best if we put things on hold for now.”
“For how long?” he asked without missing a beat.
Until I can trust myself around you, she thought, but said, “I don’t know.”
“Uh-uh. You can’t just climb all over my cock and then change your mind.”
“Shh.” Good lord. Did the man have no filters at all? She braced an elbow on the bar, rubbed at her forehead. “I think that’s why they call it a one-night stand.”
He spun his stool to face the bar, tapped his index finger against the surface as if counting. “Hmm. I’m coming up with two times, maybe three, depending if you include last night in the parking lot. And that’s just this week.”
“If you don’t shut up,” she said, reaching over to dig her fingers into his wrist, “those three times will have to hold you until your next buckle bunny comes along.”
He frowned, looked from her hand to where a silver platter the size of a saucer lay flat against his abdomen. “I didn’t think you’d even noticed my buckle.”
“I noticed.” She let him go. “I’ve got a bruise from it gouging me.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?” she asked as she lifted her beer.
“Is thinking about me going to get you through until your next ride comes along?”
“My next ride?”
“Yeah, though I suppose you’ve got a drawer full of boyfriends. Why bother with the real thing?”
She did not need this. She did not need him. She had boring and cozy and a cautious lack of adventure on her side keeping her safe. “I’m going to go to the restroom,” she said, sliding from her seat. “Why don’t you use the same time to leave?”
“And here I thought you wanted me.”
“I want you gone.”
“Afraid I’ll follow you to the parking lot?”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” she lied.
“I parked beside you again,” he said. Leaning closer, his breath tickling her ear, he added, “Just in case.”
“That,” she said with emphasis, because he was too sure of himself and she was not his toy and she deserved better than his disrespect, “will never be repeated.”
“I thought you liked it.”
“Me liking it is not the point.” She blinked, her throat closing around the frustration that threatened to burst into tears. “God, Casper. Can we not have this conversation here? Or can we just not have it at all?”
“Fine with me,” he said, sitting straight as he tugged down his hat brim. “I’d rather fuck than talk anyway.”
“Then go. Find someone to fuck. And leave me the hell alone.”
HE WAS GOING to make her insane. Honestly. What was she doing with him? Business was one thing; she’d been the Daltons’ loan officer and had continued to handle the ranch’s finances after the couple’s passing. But she and Casper had stepped over the line into a very personal relationship, one that could never be anything but physical.
So why was she wasting her time searching for something he didn’t have in him to give her? For something more than the Dalton Gang hell-raiser he was? Why was she trying to change him? Why did she think she could? He was vulgar and base, and he didn’t seem to care. Why should she?
She wasn’t looking for a long-term partner. She wasn’t ready for that. Not until she’d found a man to help her discover whatever was missing in her life. Casper Jayne was not that man. He wanted her body. He was not interested in the rest.
Her palms on the dark granite vanity between the two sinks, she stared at her reflection. She was still dressed in her corporate armor of pantyhose and sensible—though sexy—black pumps, and a sleeveless white blouse beneath a black designer suit. From the neck down, she still looked like the banking professional she was. But from the neck up…
After ten minutes spent with Casper Jayne, she looked like a woman in need of a good fucking. Her eyes were glassy, her pupils huge. She was breathless, and all she could think about was Casper’s gorgeous cock, having him inside of her, coming around him, watching the way his abs contracted just before he let go.
How did he do this to her? Why did she let him? Where was her self-control? Had she learned nothing in her life about the consequences of inappropriate behavior? Was she going to be fighting this flaw forever?
At the sound of the door opening, she cleared her throat and straightened, tugged down the hem of her suit jacket, then looked up to meet Casper’s reflected gaze. Her heart flipped, tumbling to crush her chest and choke her.
Before she could turn around, he moved in behind her and pressed his body to hers, from shoulders to hips to thighs. God, but he felt good. “What are you doing?”
“I’m about to do you,” he said, holding her gaze in the mirror and reaching between them for his buckle and his fly.
Her sex throbbed and dampened. She took a step forward. “Are you insane?”
“No more than I’ve ever been,” he told her, drawing flush with her again and this time trapping her, his body behind, the vanity in front.
This. This reckless behavior. She couldn’t throw caution to the wind the way he did. She cared about her reputation. She could lose her job, being so indiscriminately…debauched.
And then he moved just enough for her to catch sight of his cock, jutting thick and proud as if he had every right in the world to be naked with her, to show himself to her. To make her want to look, and to ache for him.
He wrapped his arm around her, beneath her belly, drawing her ass back into his groin and grinding against her. “If it makes you feel any better, I locked the door.”
“We’re not going to do this. Not here. Not now.”
“Yeah,” he said. “We are.”
“Casper—”
“Shh,” he said, reaching between them for the button of her skirt, freeing it and pushing the garment to the floor.
“You couldn’t just pull it up?” she asked, mindlessly moving while he tore away her panties and hose, stripped her out of her jacket.
“Shh,” he said again, then told her, “bend forward.” He grabbed her hip with one hand, his cock with his other, and aligned their bodies, dipping to work his way between her legs.
This was wrong. So, so wrong, and yet as she watched emotions play over his face, she couldn’t stop herself from spreading her legs, from adjusting the angle of her body. From being stupid yet again and breathless as her heart beat the air from her chest.
He slipped into her, and she caught her tongue between her teeth, biting down on the groan filling her mouth. He was full and thick and long, and his balls heavy where they hung hot against her skin.
What was she doing, letting him into her body, here, behind a door so easily unlocked? She was out of her mind. She had to be. Standing here like this, unmoving, impaled on his imposing length.
She lifted her gaze from where he filled
her, searching out his eyes beneath the brim of his hat, the flare of his nostrils, the hard line of his jaw as he ground it. He was shaking, his legs behind hers, his arm around her waist, and his breath hitched before he caught himself and buried that vulnerability in a wicked lift of his lips.
But she’d seen it, and she’d felt it, and his hiding it didn’t erase the truth. And because of that slip, that tiny bit of the barest sort of honesty, she couldn’t turn him away. But she could turn the tables…
He gave a nod to the front of her body. “Unbutton your blouse.”
“No.”
“I want to see your tits.”
Tits. So crass, yet so much his word. “What about what I want?”
“That one’s easy,” he said, breathing the words against her ear. “You want me to fuck you.”
Yes, she wanted that. Over and over, she wanted that. But she wanted it in her bed, in private, where she could let go. Not in a public place where at any minute someone could knock on the door.
“Look,” he said, parting her pussy’s lips to squeeze her clit from both sides. His cock stretched her, and his veins were blue and engorged, a relief map of his desire, his balls beneath driving him to lust.
“Watch,” he said, dipping his hips and setting a slow, shallow rhythm that had just the tip of his cock sliding in and out of her, teasing her, the seam splitting the underside creating a furrow for her clit to slide, his flesh wet with her cream.
She didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she moved them to the buttons on her blouse, opening them slowly, watching his eyes heat as she bared her skin, as she used two fingers to pull just her nipples from the cups of her white bra.
She toyed with them, and he grunted. She pinched and twisted them, and he shoved himself deeper inside of her, grinding his hips, gouging the flesh of hers where he gripped her. She cupped herself completely and lifted herself free, and he moved his hands from her lower body to hold her.
He covered her, hid her, hefted her slight weight in his very large palms, thumbed her nipples until she squirmed, until she lowered her hands and used her fingers to ring his cock.
“Look,” she said, sliding the circle she’d made with her thumb and middle finger from beneath his head’s cap to the base of his shaft.
